A federal judge on Wednesday declined to issue an immediate ruling on the White House’s ban against CNN, MS NOW and Politico after hearing arguments from the two sides in the case, leaving the ban in place for the time being.
Judge Timothy J. Kelly of U.S. District Court in Washington said he would rule “as soon as possible” on the ban.
The ban dates to last Friday, when Mr. Trump declared in a Truth Social post that he would bar CNN, Politico and MS NOW from the White House because of their reporting. On Saturday, journalists for each outlet were denied access to White House grounds, and by Monday, the outlets had sued the administration, arguing the ban was a violation of their First Amendment rights.
To express support for the banned outlets, other media companies pulled back from their routine coverage of presidential events. The television pool — five networks that share the responsibility of providing and distributing television coverage of the president — suspended that coverage starting Monday. The New York Times and The Washington Post also said they would limit publication of photos taken from the president’s events as part of a broader effort among journalists to boycott in support of the barred journalists. NPR stopped using audio from White House events, according to an internal memo viewed by The Times.
Judge Kelly seemed skeptical of the administration’s arguments in the hearing on Wednesday.
A lawyer for the media outlets, Theodore J. Boutrous, told the judge that Mr. Trump’s repeated statements that he had imposed the ban because he took exception to journalism from certain media organizations made him “our lead witness.” Mr. Boutrous said such a rationale infringes on the outlets’ constitutional rights. “He keeps proving our point,” Mr. Boutrous said.
A lawyer for the administration, Michael Velchik, countered that the outlets were embracing an “absurd interpretation of the First Amendment.” He said the affected outlets mistakenly thought they could “knowingly publish classified information” while still enjoying “privileged access to the White House complex.” He argued that access to the White House is a “privilege, not a right.”
Judge Kelly also decided a similar case from November 2018, when Mr. Trump, in his first term, expelled CNN’s Jim Acosta from the White House complex. Mr. Acosta wasn’t given an opportunity to rebut his banishment, he said at the time.
Fights over journalistic access have become a staple of Mr. Trump’s presidency. In his first term, the White House revoked another reporter’s access in addition to Mr. Acosta. Both recovered their credentials in legal proceedings. At the start of his second term, Mr. Trump also booted The Associated Press from the pool of journalists who cover the president in such spaces as the Oval Office and Air Force One. That case remains in litigation. Mr. Trump’s defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has also imposed reporting and access restrictions on news organizations that have been successfully challenged in court by The Times; the Pentagon is appealing those rulings.
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